Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon  

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

The Bambu Lab printer is certainly interesting and by all appearances they are off to a good start. Having said that, they are also very new to the market, a closed architecture, and have relatively few units in users hands.

Prusa have been around for a dozen years, give or take, have a reputation for reliability, are open source, have shipped thousands of units, and have an extensive user and support community.

I think there are plenty of Prusa users here who are interested in and /or already owners of printers from other manufacturers. If you can afford to own both and run them side-by-side, I’m sure you will learn a lot and enjoy the experience.

Please come back here and let us know your experiences with both printers once you’ve had adequate time to do some in depth evaluations.

Cheers

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

I think the pricepoint of the bambu x1 is to low for what it is meaning I thing they are now selling at a loss to get a foothold in the market 

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

I have two MK3S+ printers and they have performed very well for me over the past 2 years but I recently (last 2 weeks) bought a Bambu X1-Carbon and it is in a completely different league to the MK3S+. It is incredibly fast, with excellent print quality, reliable first layer every time and an up to date interface. 

A print on the MK3S+ which takes 17 hours is completed on the X1-Carbon in 6 hours and with better quality. It's possible that with much tweaking I could get similar quality from the MK3S+ but I didn't have to do any tweaking on the X1-Carbon, it worked straight out of the box.

Prusa will become the Blackberry or Nokia of 3D printing if they don't up their game and make the huge leap forward that Bambu have achieved.  

Some will say that Bambu are too new to the market and maybe can't be trusted to stay for the long haul, but if they don't, someone else will take up where they left off and the looser will be Prusa. "If you're not truly innovating, you're failing".

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

Posted by: @tron71

I have two MK3S+ printers and they have performed very well for me over the past 2 years but I recently (last 2 weeks) bought a Bambu X1-Carbon and it is in a completely different league to the MK3S+

Are you saying you got the printer within 2 weeks after order or do you judge from online content such as videos?

One potential drawback I read is that you have to use either glue stick on one plate or sacrifice LIDAR when using the other (textured) plate.

Other than that I did not find too much which concerns me.

The bambulab seriously is what I was waiting for. I had a look at the RAISE3D printers before prusa, but I was not willing to spend 6k on a printer. In the range of 1.5-3k there were not many options. The bambulab seems to fill this gap with ease and will put pressure on the more expensive ones (ultimaker, raise3D).

Usually I would tend to say let's wait until the early bugs are fixed. But in the meantime, they probably sold 10'000 units and the engineers claim they did 7 design iterations until they shipped the first unit.

I'm a development engineer myself. 22 month from scratch until you ship 5k units is only possible if you know what you are doing!

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

@tron71 - 

Thank you for sharing your experience with the Bambu X1. Sounds like you’re having some pretty impressive results!

I can’t disagree with you about innovation. It’s an interesting time to be in the 3D printing space.

Cheers

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

I ordered the X1 -Carbon at the beginning of December and received it about a week ago. 

They recommend that you use a glue stick which helps when removing the print from the bed and it does this but I have also printed in areas where there was no glue applied and I had no trouble removing the print once it had cooled down. I could see how I could damage the surface without glue as it does stick very well to the build plate but if you are careful you could probably get away without glue. I should say that the glue will just wipe from the print and leave no marks.

After running multiple prints on the X1-Carbon to compare against the MK3S+ I can say that if the reliability is there I will be replacing my MK3S+ printers with X1's. I still have to test with flexible filament but PETG and PLA produce excellent prints at an unbelievable speed.  

I have ordered some textured plates for testing and hope they will produce the same quality as the Prusa version. 

For info, I had an Ultimaker 3 but it was a big mistake. The Prusa MK3S+ was much more reliable than the Ultimaker at a quarter the cost. Don't bother with Ultimaker, the MK3S+ is much better but the X1-Carbon is few leaps ahead. 

Time will tell if the X1-Carbon is as reliable as the Prusa but the build quality is excellent so it's looking good.

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

Something that matters to me is the physical properties, like tensile strength, of the finished print. From two seperate sources I have seen the test results done in materials labs, not on a YouTube video. On the same printer with the same filament under identical conditions samples were done at different speeds and different temps then tested. Both PLA and PETG. The numbers peaked at about 45mm/s and at the upper end of the recommended temps. Both slower and faster dropped off fairly fast. Cooler made cleaner but weaker tests. So while that probably means nothing to the majority of users to me it means a great deal considering the use our prints are put to. High speed may have it's place but it may not be everything.....yet.

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

@sailoreric - excellent point, thank you for bringing that up.

I think Stefan at CNC Kitchen has some good videos re part strength with different materials, layer heights, and temperatures. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything re part strength at different speeds but it’s a valid concern. 

Cheers

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

One source was a materials testing lab at a university. The other was an industrial level printer. While they do mostly aerospace stuff like PEEK and PEKK they also do work in more humble stuff like PLA and PETG. They have an in house materials testing lab and test everything to prove they meet spec as well as be able to guarentee printed parts performance. Again maybe not a concern for most but it is for me. The advice given by the printer was ignore 75% of advice you see on the internet, social media and forums unless you just want best cosmetics. If you want the best properties research actual testing facility reports and consider testing yourself. Not fiscally possible for us but I figure the two sources I used were pretty accurate! So we print at 40 to 45 and right at the top of the temperature range. We deal with cosmetics as a secondary consideration like stringing with a heat gun, sometimes mild sanding, etc. Also use what most would consider premium filaments for consistent results. The only failures we've had were from people who way exceeded what we told them were the limits or exceeded working temps by a large amount.

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

Great info, thanks for sharing.

Happy Holidays and keep doing the awesome work you do!

Cheers

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

Keep in mind that you are on the prusa forum, results are bound to be biased. 

If I were you, I'd get a bambu. They're so much easier to use (no z offest, flow, or PA calibration), and are shipping faster than the mk3 currently. 

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

I'm definitely watching the bambu lab subreddit for what new users are experiencing. I only own a few bed slingers (2x MK3s and an ender) so I don't know personally how much better a core xy could be but the speed difference  I think is a bit misleading. Sure it can print 250mm/s accurately but for most small to mid size prints it'll never reach those speeds on each layer. The 4x times print speed realistically leads to an at best 2x overall print time which is model dependent. There is a lot of good articles and videos on the topic to look up too on the topic.

The lidar and AI detection stuff is definitely cool and huge step up for reliability which I hope spreads throughout the brands. I do really want a banbu X1 but, for me, I dont think the price supports it. If multi material is a big point for you I could see the X1 being more worth it as the MMU seems to kinda suck (I don't own one just going off review and videos). Honestly I'm looking to go in the other direction and getting a Sovol sv06 as a prusa clone for my next printer. The prusas are reliable as hell and the established customer support, parts, and software will keep me buying prusas.

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

My two cents- Have had the X1 since with Kickstarter delivery, and have been extremely impressed with all aspects- the software, the app, print quality, product quality, ease of use, and the multicolor is excellent.  I'm not a tinkerer, and I know it's a 'closed' system, but that's not important to me.

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

Posted by: @sailoreric

Something that matters to me is the physical properties, like tensile strength, of the finished print. From two seperate sources I have seen the test results done in materials labs, not on a YouTube video. On the same printer with the same filament under identical conditions samples were done at different speeds and different temps then tested. Both PLA and PETG. The numbers peaked at about 45mm/s and at the upper end of the recommended temps. Both slower and faster dropped off fairly fast. Cooler made cleaner but weaker tests. So while that probably means nothing to the majority of users to me it means a great deal considering the use our prints are put to. High speed may have it's place but it may not be everything.....yet.

 

Thanks for sharing! Indeed, it matters also for me. Not for all parts, but certainly for thin wall parts. We should investigate this topic a bit more. CNC Kitchen has some videos. There are many parameters influencing the speed and strength: Layer height/nozzle diameter, temperature, infill density, infill pattern, speed, material...

In the meantime, I got the MK3s+, but I will not unbox it. I'm currently trying to resell it without loss.

The reasons why I will go with the Bambulab are (highest importance first):

- higher print speed
-  Software & connectivity (touchscreen, WIFI etc.)
- multi material possibility
- print quality
- build volume

Currently I see only two advantages for the prusa: long term reliability + open source

For long time reliability we have to see how the bambu performs. Open source is not important for me. I want to use the printer for my own projects. I don't want to invest my own time in engineering of upgrades for the printer. Since spare parts are reasonnably priced, I don't see any disadvantage for me.

RE:

It is hard to know how the Bamboo will rate in a year, but it seems like they have executed very well. That is rare. If you look at the Anker reviews, they are very mixed, with many software issues.. and I”m not sure I like the filament loading procedure. But the X1 Carbon looks like a winner and a testament to their engineers. I think Prusa has to get into the Core XY market really quickly. I agree speed isn’t everything.. But compare the X1 with prints 2 to 3x as fast as a Prusa, with wireless built in and an enclosure. A  built Prusa MK3+ with enclosure and OctoPi is at least 50% higher here (Canada). I fear Prusa might have missed the window for the Mk4 .. and their execution on the XL has been too slow and might cost them significantly when it launches.

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

Hopefully the I4 or Mk4 or whatever they call it is far enough along that it can come out soon after they get their crap together with the XL.  I think a CoreXY printer smaller than the XL and priced somewhere between that and the legacy I3 printers would make a lot of sense.

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

As I already mentioned, it's very impressive what the bambu lab engineers did. It's only possible, if people have a lot of experience. For me, their DJI background is key.

I doubt that Prusa can come up with all the missing technology that fast. At least not with the maturity level of the Bambu Lab... Let's see, as customers we need the competition 🙂 I don't care about the brand, I care about the experience.

RE:

If you look at the recent poll that is at the top of the Prusa site (re: the next iteration of MK3), it seems like the Bamboo has caught them by surprise. I'd be surprised if you see an MK4 within 2 years.. At that point, it will be interesting to see their market share in that segment. I think the Bamboo has such a lead, that I'm not sure Prusa can overcome that. Look how long it took them to get Prusa Connect integrated into the Mini (& MK3).. and still no one can find the necessary PI parts in NA. Canada hasn't had a PI in 5 months. (thru normal channels). Creality has been pretty active in their offerings.. they may capture more of a share of Prusa's existing market. Anker is too young to tell. 

RE: Prusa MK3S+ vs Bambu Lab X1 carbon

Finding a Pi is not the problem (I ordered one from Amazon for my Voron build within the last half hour).  There are lots of them on eBay as well.  The problem is that you are not going to find a Pi for what people had become accustomed to paying for them in the past.

Prusa does need to get their act together, but I don't think it is necessarily bleak.  In the short term, yeah they are going to lose a bunch of I3 sales to Bambu, but they still have a strong product in the Mini, and if they can get their crap together with the XL they will be in a good position to come up with a downsized version to compete with the Bambu.